In case you were wondering. #catastrophicsuccess Drawing on this impressive data set, Downes shows that regime change increases the likelihood of civil war and violent leader removal in target states and fails to reduce the probability of conflict between intervening states and their targets

kind reminder

African states are more and more vocal about this www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Anthropic versus Pentagon. Reposting this classic essay on Factions of Capital within the Trump admin ht @benbraun.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/70sb...

da Città del Messico ho scritto questa analisi/racconto (“Il mercoledì delle ceneri”) dei narcoblocchi che hanno sconvolto il paese e delle tensioni legate a nuove traiettorie politiche nazionali e nell’emisfero occidentale ilmanifesto.it/messico-il-m...

#Egypt has denied reports it offered #Ethiopia #RedSea access in exchange for flexibility over the #GERD, as tensions rise over #Nile water rights & #RedSeaSecurity. #Somaliland #HornOfAfrica

Here is Rep. Al Green holding up a sign that according to CNN's Manu Raju said "Black people are not apes” before Steve Scalise pulled it down

Call for PhD in Human Rights, Global Politics and International Studies at @SantAnnaPisa (with a new track in IR) Deadline May 15, 2026 www.santannapisa.it/it/training/...

oggi sul Manifesto una mia riflessione sull'ingresso nel quinto anno di guerra in Ucraina ilmanifesto.it/un-filo-nero...

FIFA President Gianni Infantino chumming around at the first meeting of Trump's "Board of Peace" — tasked with reconstructing the land American bombs destroyed. A complaint was just filed at the International Criminal Court against Infantino for aiding Israel's war crimes in Palestine.

su substack provo a mettere insieme qualche spunto sui due teatri di guerra in preparazione e sulle loro possibili giunture substack.com/@francescost...

Steve Bannon and the Epshteyn connection:

In Indonesia, two islands have already disappeared & thousands more face the threat of rising seas. Families are being relocated & tourism projects that once sustained local economies are fading away. Our photo story captures how climate-driven events are reshaping life for coastal communities.

Europe is where when the sea is rough, the waves carry 15 corpses of humans to the beaches of Italy, and everyone turns around worrying about tourism. Italy is a place where the government call for 'protecting our national borders'. Against the threat of those who drown.

Really?! US Secretary of State Marco Rubio just gave one of the most explicitly pro-colonialist speeches in 21st century. The US empire wants Europe to help it recolonize the Global South. Rubio was at Munich Security Conference, surrounded by European leaders, who gave him a standing ovation.

AI researcher says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

#Epstein #EpsteinFiles

Longer sentence signals turning point for Tunisia’s opposition: “opposition figures, lawyers, #journalists, and activists have faced arrest and lengthy prison sentences . . ." READ: maghrebi.org?sdm_process_...

La maggior parte dei media è impegnata a ridurre il caso Epstein a scandalo sessuale. Tuttavia, chiunque abbia letto i files attraverso i social media ha chiaro di non trovarsi davanti a un sexgate. Caso Epstein, oltre la superficie dello scandalo @zaz.bsky.social ilmanifesto.it/caso-epstein...

'partial membership' is something conceptually new

Definitely seems like they destroyed the country on purpose.

So much for the party of individual freedom and small government. The Republican Party is now all in on the police state. Just to be clear, immigrants are not “invaders” and people standing up for human rights are not “traitors.” People who defend state violence ARE betraying American values.

tomorrow - Tuesday 3rd, we conclude in Pisa our PRIN PNRR research project on engaging jihadists in negotiations in the Global South. Publications will follow

a gentle reminder

New from me: It is not just that the US is experiencing democratic backsliding. Authoritarianism has emerged more quickly than in other benchmark countries. This graph from John Burn-Murdoch sums it up. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/autocracy-...

“The overwhelming liberal focus on disinformation misreads how digital platforms work: misleading content is everywhere, but the real battleground is over emotion and attention” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This phrase should not exist. A pox upon a society that allows this to happen. Burn it all down and start over. "An uprising of children in a DHS concentration camp"

ICE already knows who Minneapolis protesters are: they use facial recognition, social media monitoring and other tech tools not only to identify undocumented immigrants but also to track protesters. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/t...

Le Monde goes back to the 'Dmitriev case', the historian of Stalinist crimes sentenced to fifteen years in prison: one of the heaviest among Russian political prisoners (an estimated number of 3,000-4,600) www.lemonde.fr/histoire/art...

Ukrainian Defence Minister Fedorov confirms that Russian forces are equipping drones with Starlink satellite systems

‘Humanity needs to wake up’ to dangers of AI, says Anthropic chief www.ft.com/content/c309...

A militia that kills: Milan’s mayor says ICE agents are ‘clearly not welcome’ in Winter Olympics co-host city “because they don’t guarantee they’re aligned with our democratic security management methods”. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

According to the latest data published by the Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), as of Saturday January 24, the total number of confirmed deaths from the recent crackdown on anti-regime protests in Iran has reached 5,459, while the number of deaths currently under investigation stands at 17,...

This is the correct take. And what do we think will happen if (when?) the civil unrest in the US gets worse? It's simple. If you look like a political basket case, your currency becomes much less appealing.

Remember 10 years ago when the United States kidnapped Nicolas Maduro?

Trump: “I’m building, on top of everything else that I am doing, one of the greatest and most beautiful Ballrooms anywhere in the World, with more than 300 Million Dollars of Great American Patriots’ money, & working closely with, right from the beginning, the US Military and Secret Service”

"Israeli arms exports surged in the wake of the genocide, reaching a record $14.8 billion in 2024. Europe emerged as the largest buyer, accounting for 54 percent of total exports." www.972mag.com/germany-isra...

Spraying pepper spray directly into the eyes of a detained person who’s already fully subdued

kind reminder

Trovo sia molto preoccupante come sui media italiani gli sviluppi nel Nordest della Siria, a tre giorni dall'inizio dell'offensiva, restino sostanzialmente oscurati substack.com/@francescost...

Major implications here for an Islamic State resurgence in #Syria.

Whilst I welcome a ceasefire in Syria I worry that there will be a silent war against Kurdish communities and other Syrian minorities, especially given HTS’s past history.

looks like in the latest issue of Civiltà Cattolica the Gesuits give a 15 page answer to JD Vance's ideas about the ordo amoris

I'm happy to embark on a new semester teaching a new course on African agency in IR at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University, and a module on Africa in IR at ITAM in Mexico City. Exploring new ways of making sense of change in the international order (or what remains of it)

Bologna, Piazza Maggiore. Solidarity gathering by the trade unions against repression in Iran

Explain to me how this would happen. The fucking mechanics of it. Explain them to me. Russia or China, storming the beaches of an EU and NATO member state terrotiry which includes a fucking US military base on it in a take and hold maneuver a bazillion miles from their nearest supply lines?

eyes on perception of the US in Europe

Deutsche Bank boss stirs up Germany by calling it “logical” to finance European defence with joint debt www.lesechos.fr/finance-marc...